The Tempest (The Annotated Shakespeare)

I first encountered the work of Burton Raffel sometimes in the mid-1960s, when his 1963 verse translation of "Beowulf" was the "new kid on the block" in that increasingly crowded neighborhood. It was an early favorite of mine, although displaced in later years by more literal renderings; e.g., Raffel would throw in a phrase now and then which was not to be found anywhere in the Old English text. For those who like the verse style, however, it remains a "good read" (and still available in paperback and Kindle formats).Raffel's "Annotated" editions of Milton and some of Shakespeare's plays are from a later stage in his career, and in places read like notes toward a translation out of sixteenth and seventeenth-century English into early twenty-first-century American. The annotations are not explanatory or interpretive notes, expansions of metaphors, or identifications of literary or topical allusions, but mainly glosses on words which have changed meaning, acquired or lost meanings, or fallen out of use during the last 350-400 years.Compared to Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Middle English, the language of Shakespeare and Milton is definitely "Modern" -- but already archaic by the eighteenth century, and dramatically farther still from both colloquial and formal English of the twentieth century. In this volume Raffel deals with a play which first appeared in print as the first play in the (posthumous) First Folio collection of Shakespeare's plays, and which is, by Elizabethan and Jacobean standards, fairly unproblematic (only a few words and sentences are so corrupt as to baffle scholars)."The Tempest" seems to have premiered in 1610 or, more likely, 1611, and a court performance is recorded in the latter year. It is probably the last play wholly by Shakespeare, and also the most tightly plotted. It is one of the most fantastic: if one leaves aside merely far-fetched improbabilities in, for example, "The Winter's Tale," the only rival is "A Midsummer Night's Dream."It is also strikingly original, in one sense -- it is the only play for which Shakespeare seems to have had no main source, although points of detail can be traced back to the Roman poet Ovid (and ultimately Homer) on the one hand, and to the contemporary colonizations of Jamestown and Bermuda on the other.It is also the least original, in that the major characters, although given individuality by Shakespeare's genius, are variations on stock figures, especially those in traditional "fairy tales." The testy Old Magician (Prospero) with the Beautiful Daughter (Miranda), the mysterious island (or mountain, or valley), the handsome young hero (Prince Ferdinand) and other lost travelers, not all of them trustworthy (Prospero's brother, Ferdinand's uncle), the Magician's non-human servants (Ariel and Caliban), the comic-relief stooges (Stefano and Trinculo), all are familiar types to lovers of story. Which basic familiarity is probably just as well, since back-story exposition in the second scene covers material with which Shakespeare could have filled three or four acts!The same stock figures are still around, in popular fiction, (with some displacement of relationships, see Ian Fleming's "Dr. No") in overt fantasy fiction, and in a lot of older science fiction, where, not so very long ago, Mad Scientists with Beautiful Daughters, alien or robotic servants, and gallant heroes used to abound, as enshrined in the 1956 film "Forbidden Planet," with its open allusions to "The Tempest." (And with Walter Pidgeon in the Prospero role, Anne Francis as the Miranda figure, Leslie Nielson as the Prince -- well, Spaceship Captain -- and Robbie the Robot as both Ariel and Caliban.)Raffel's treatment of the vocabulary was originally made up of foot-of-page glosses, and a final comprehensive glossary (in which additional uses of repeated terms could be found, cutting down on repetitious footnotes). In the Kindle edition, this is abandoned for hyperlinked glosses (the glossary is retained, although not hyperlinked).The Kindle links work very well (at least on Kindle for Macs), but they do have the disadvantage of pulling the attention away from the play for longer than necessary. For first-time readers of the play, I would suggest a straight-through reading to get the main action and characterization straight, and then a re-reading, methodically checking the vocabulary to make sure of getting the details right.Inevitably, some of Raffel's definitions are judgment-calls as to likelihood, but his choices seem to me plausible, and most often he is probably -- or certainly -- correct.As Raffel says, he offers little explicit help for more advanced interpretations of the play, or its imagery -- but then, the first step is always to know what is actually said. The accompanying essay by Harold Bloom is interesting, but on a number of points out of step with more recent scholarship (was Shakespeare really alluding to the death of Christopher Marlowe in a passage in "As You Like It"?) He does make some interesting points worth considering, such as the relationship of the names of "Faustus" and "Prospero," both suggesting good fortune (e.g., prosperity); but I remain to be convinced that "The Tempest" is to be considered a long-delayed "reply" to Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." (Hey, what about the rival magicians in Greene's "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay"?)

a friend of mine is performing in the tempest here in seattle and environs and i wanted a version of the play to read and like an academic version -- the problem is, the annotations are small aa, ab, ac, ba, bb, that are next to the word being expanded on, or phrase, and it is hard for my fingers to always get the annotation and not the turn page rather response and i don't enjoy the hopping back and forth that happens. it's a smart choice -- it only cost 95 cents, which is a real bargain. bloom, the great and possibly last great english professor, contributes to it. it is simply a bit awkward as an ebook.

Purchased for a class assignment. I enjoyed a number of his plays, this one is on my "enjoyed" list; however, I must confess that I didn't read this for fun. I read it because I had to. But for learning a few quotable lines to use at dinner parties, I would rather have spent the time fishing.

I tried a different version of the Tempest for Kindle, and its annotations brought me just to references of Pope and other renown commentators which is of no use to anyone unless a scholar. This version's footnotes give you explanation of difficult or old vocabulary.

I find this Kindle version of The Tempest shares the same problem with all other kindle books, which is that the footnotes are not at the bottom of each page but need to be cliked on, taking you to another part of the text from which then you have to return with the back arrow. I find this extremely disturbing because: a) the links to the footnotes are as big as the words of the text itself, so they really do disrupt my reading experience, and b) having to click on them denies me the chance to glimpse at them first to see if it is something worth actually reading or not.

Magical mayhem breaks out as Prospero seeks revenge, Miranda falls in love, and clowns and royalty plot and repent. Especially helpful in this edition was the essay commentary. I reread this play the week prior to attending a local production of it, and I was well prepared, enough to give my husband a useful synopsis.

It is a soft cover for those who prefer hardcovers. Great book. This book was required for an old class of mine and it was quickly delivered in perfect condition. If you like William Shakespeare I would recommend this book.

Amazing has great translation and still stays the same by using annotations while still amazingly only 99¢ totally worth it. Please note it is note as good as paper copy.

The formatting of the text itself seems fine. On a computer, the annotations are bearable to use. On my Kindle 4, they are unusable. This didn't come as a huge surprise, but without the annotations I'd have to go back to a printed book.First, to see the annotation you have to navigate to the link (I don't have a Kindle touch) -- this isn't so bad. Then, you have to press the button twice -- not great -- and wait for page refresh -- getting painful now. What kills it stone dead is that the back button doesn't work -- it takes me to a completely different page from where I followed the link (always Raffel's "Finding List" for some reason).It's possible newer versions of the Kindle software don't have the back button problem -- I bought mine about a year ago and don't connect my kindle to the network, since it's a bad idea for every reader on the planet to trust amazon. So the software on my kindle is about a year old. Googling seems to suggest that others have this problem, though. Even without that problem, it's going to be a fairly unpleasant process if you want to read a lot of annotations, as I do for this text (and remember there are often three annotations on a single short line!). What would be ideal would be to see the notes pop up, as the dictionary definitions do for all books. What you actually get is light years away from that.Without the annotations, I believe the only thing you're getting over the free Project Gutenberg edition is the introductory material. While that's worth having, my main reason for buying this was the annotations.

Really good play. Very funny and entertaining. Always love some Shakespeare. If your looking for a copy for studies in English, I would always recommend Norton editions as they have great critical analysis at the back and the footnote system used is very simple

It's a good book for those who like to read and understand this particular play of Shakespeare. Annotations are given but not all allusion or puns are explained.